


Simple Pleasures

by giantessmess



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood and Violence, F/F, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 22:48:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giantessmess/pseuds/giantessmess
Summary: Miranda wakes up and everything has changed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MeadowUndertown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeadowUndertown/gifts).

She wakes up not knowing where she is. Her mouth taste strange. The room is dark, but she can still see. Every stitch in the shoddy carpeting, every stain. She can see everything.

Miriam. Her name is Miriam, isn’t it? It is hard to remember. She remembers children but she doesn’t see any children. It’s a small room. It doesn’t smell of children. She is sure children have a smell. Twins. There are twin girls, somewhere. But this apartment is barely room enough for one person. There’s a curtain separating the bed from the living room. And then it hits her; the smell of something foul coming from the kitchen.

She crawls from where she’s been lying on the floor. Stands. Nothing hurts, but her body doesn’t move the way she expects. She counts her limbs. Fingers. She still has all of her teeth. And oh God, the kitchen. Someone is dying in the kitchen. The smell of it is familiar. A girl. She knows this girl. Knows her scent, even if she does not know a thing about herself.

God there is so much blood, but the girl is alive. Barely breathing, eyes shut. The girl’s lips are cracked. Her long brown hair is matted with filth. The blood seeping into the grout of the tiles smells stale. It has been a long time, possibly hours. Her insides hurt. She struggles for the girl’s name, trying hard to pull it back from the darkness. 

“Andrea,” she says. She kneels. The girl barely stirs, making a small sound that is too weak to be a moan. 

She doesn’t know how she thinks to do this. Why she takes a fingernail and scratches deep into her own wrist until blood begins to emerge. It doesn’t make sense, but she does it anyway. She tries to rouse the girl, a hand on her shoulder. She leans forward. 

“Andrea, you need to wake up.” 

Barely any movement. She holds her wrist to the girl’s mouth, and the girl makes a noise, before obediently drinking from it. 

And _oh_. This feeling. It comes in a wave. It flushes her completely, hot and perfect, dipping down to her toes. She lets out a gasp, almost doubling over, and still the girl drinks. 

“Miranda,” the girl says. Her eyes open and they are as deep and brown as she remembers. How does she know this girl? She is mesmerized. The girl lets out a shudder then, reaching out to grasp hold of her. 

“They’re coming back,” she says. “Miranda? We can’t stay here.” 

Predictably, this is when the girl passes out in her lap. 

Miranda knows, now. She knows who she is. But she isn’t sure any of it is true anymore.

She follows Andrea’s advice, even though she doesn’t understand it. She knows where they are. For some reason, they are in Andrea’s apartment and they need to be very far away from it. Far enough away for her to begin to figure out what has happened to them. 

It’s shocking when she grabs hold of the girl, tries to lift her and it’s easy. It’s as if she weighs nothing. She carries Andrea to the makeshift bedroom, putting her down on the bed as carefully as she can. Andrea groans softly. The stench of death is still on her. Piss and shit and blood. Miranda strips the bloodied clothes off Andrea. She throws the offending garments on the ground and realizes the smell is coming from her own body. Her clothes are soaked in blood, her own blood. Her shirt is dank with it, but she can’t seem to find the source. Her skin is flawless.

She hurries to choose something, anything, from the girl’s wardrobe. Settles on a barely passable floral dress for herself. Houndstooth trousers and a wrinkled black shirt for Andrea.

“Move your leg,” she prods and Andrea does. “And another, that’s my girl. We can do this.”

She finds a hairbrush, tries and fails to brush the blood out of the long, beautiful hair. Finds a hair-tie instead.

“Miranda,” the girl murmurs, and it’s a relief to know she still has her wits about her. Until she says the next thing. “I think I might be dying.”

“Shhhh, no,” Miranda says, lifting her a little. “We need to get moving. Can you stand?”

Andrea lets out a tiny grumble, which would be cute in any other circumstance. 

“I can’t carry you out to the car, it would look too insane,” Miranda says, and then hesitates. “Shit, shit…”

Because she can’t even remember how she got to Andrea’s apartment, let alone why she did. She can’t begin to trace where her car could be. Where her phone is. She doesn’t even know what day it is.

“Was Tuesday...then passed out. Wednesday…maybe?” Andrea offers, as if Miranda had indeed spoken. “They…took us here.”

It is clearly an effort for Andrea to speak. Miranda helps her lie back down and hushes her, fights the urge to hold her. Andrea’s breathing is getting fainter and fainter. Her eyes are losing their focus.

“Stay here,” Miranda orders, uselessly, and searches the place for a landline, a cell phone. Anything. She finds an ancient cordless phone on an end table near the front door. The plastic creaks a little as she dials the number of her car service. 

“Miranda Priestly,” she says, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She manages to summon some of her former authority. She orders a car and rattles off Andrea’s address, despite not having previously known it. Hangs up and sighs. 

She packs two bags full of things she isn’t even sure she needs. And she suddenly feels incredibly hungry, breathless with want. But when she looks in the kitchen for food it doesn’t interest her. She packs it anyway; granola bars, apples. Gathers and packs toiletries she hates the sight of. Clothes that smell of Andrea’s detergent, her sweat and the rust from a cheap washing machine. But when she returns to collect the girl to take her down to the street and meet their car, she can’t revive her. 

Andrea has stopped breathing. Her eyes open, her body still.

“No, no no,” her voice comes out sounding hysterical. “Andrea, wake up this instant!”

Miranda shakes her. Feels for a pulse but fails to find any. The car has arrived. Miranda can hear it pulling up to the curb, though that is several floors below. She wants to scream or cry, but no tears will come. 

“We can do this,” she says as she lifts Andrea to a standing position, drapes an arm over her shoulder. “You’re not dead. You’re going to be fine. You hear me?”

The bags go over her other shoulder, and it isn’t as hard as it should be walking down and down the wretched stairwell. She knows instinctively to avoid the elevator. Knows it’s broken, has been broken for years. She has memories of it trapping her inside it for a full afternoon. Memories she knows aren’t her own. 

Focus. There are more pressing matters. That of the car, and the unknown destination. She tries to think over the options, but she is hungry. She is so hungry that it is becoming hard to think. She hobbles them both outside and is climbing into the car before it hits her, what she is hungry for. She stares, dumfounded, at the driver. The hunger clenches inside her. She has to restrain herself from crawling over the backseat to get to him.

“Out,” she barks.

“Excuse me?”

“Get. Out. Of. The Car,” she says. 

She has Andrea to worry about first. Settles her in the backseat, buckling her in, brushing the hair softly out of her face. And then Miranda marches outside, almost breaking the front door handle when she yanks it open.

“Ms Priestly…”

“Leave.”

She can’t find the words that will smooth this over, not with him sitting there, fresh and alive with all that blood pumping inside him. She can barely breathe. He looks terrified, more so than her employees usually do. He clambers out of the car quickly, babbling something she can’t hear over the pumping of his arteries. 

She climbs in, slams the door shut. Breathes, and hates how much it smells of him still. But she knows where to go now, at least. She puts the car into gear and drives.


	2. Chapter 2

They’re on the move for hours. They started with a full tank of gas and she dreads stopping for more. There are people everywhere. So many people. It gets easier the further they get from the city. The cars around them lessen and she can take a breath, can grip the steering wheel less tightly. It has a crack running through it, and she fears it will break.

Andrea doesn’t stir at all throughout the journey. She doesn’t even make a noise. Miranda has to stop herself from pulling over and checking for, what? A pulse? She isn’t even sure if that’s relevant now. 

They are close to their destination when she hears a murmur, a soft gasp from the backseat. Remembers the confusion she’d gone through herself and feels a pang at the way Andrea sits up, eyes wide, looking around like she has never seen the world before.

“Andrea,” Miranda says softly. “Look at me. It’s ok.”

Andrea stares and stares, like she is struggling to find the right words.

“I know you,” she says. She squints a little, as if in thought.

“Yes,” Miranda says. 

“You’re important… to me.”

Something in those words makes Miranda ache to reach over and touch her. Stroke her skin, her face, her lips. She shakes her head. Her voice comes out croaky.

“I don’t…”

Andrea looks at her in wonder.

“Do you know me?” 

It hurts Miranda somewhere deep. She nods but struggles to find the words to reply.

It’s half an hour later when they pull up to the house. The engine has barely stopped running before Andrea climbs out of the backseat. 

“Wait,” Miranda calls, helplessly.

Andrea looks around at the trees, at the starlit sky. 

“Why aren’t we in New York?”

“It’s not safe,” Miranda says. “Now help me with the bags.”

She steers Andrea into the house with a hand on her back. The place is empty, of course. And when she tries the light switch by the front door it doesn’t work. She shouldn’t be surprised by this.

“I can see,” Andrea says, her voice small. 

“What?”

“It’s night. Why can I see?”

Miranda hadn’t noticed it getting dark. She looks around and maybe it’s a little dimmer. It does smell like night. She can hear the crickets chirping outside.

“Miranda…”

“Do you know who you are yet?” Miranda asks. “Please, Andrea. I can’t do this alone.”

“I think….” Andrea hesitates. “I think I’m yours.”

“No.”

“Please…”

Before Miranda even knows how to react, Andrea reaches out, her hand caressing Miranda’s shoulder. 

“Andrea.”

“You smell like me…”

“Stop.”

Miranda takes a breath, closing her eyes. It’s so hard to pull away. She doesn’t want to pull away. Andrea presses against her, begins to kiss her neck. Behind her ear. Miranda feels a pang between her legs.

“I said, stop it!” she croaks. 

She scrambles away, shoving Andrea so hard that the girl stumbles backwards. 

“What…” Andrea says, blinking a few times. She looks around then, taking Miranda in as if for the first time. “Oh…fuck.”

Miranda can only agree.

The house is smaller than Miranda remembers. Uglier. She always hated the cheap, off-white paint on the walls and time certainly hasn’t done it any favors.  
There’s still a functional-looking fireplace taking pride of place in the living room. Somehow, Miranda doesn’t feel cold. It’s almost winter and she’s wearing a summer dress. She goes through the side door to the backyard to gather wood, finding the garden wild and overgrown. The woodpile is still there, but it’s rotting. There’s some loose logs that seem dry enough. Some twigs, though she keeps dropping them. She can’t think clearly for some reason. Her stomach hurts, and her whole body has started to ache. She licks her lips, imagining something warm and salty to drink. How good that would be. Steeling herself, she returns inside and begins to build the fire. 

“I’m not cold,” Andrea says, crouching down beside her.

“We’re having a fire,” Miranda huffs, sticking the kindling in place. “It’s the civilized thing to do.”

“Ok,” Andrea says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “I’m waiting for you to explain what the hell is going on, by the way.”

Miranda lets out a breath.

“I’m trying to figure it out myself.”

Andrea frowns, watching her fumble with shaking hands. Miranda is finding it hard to breathe without thinking about food. She closes her eyes.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Andrea asks.

“I’ve built a hundred fires in this God-forsaken fireplace, so yes.”

“So, this is your house?”

“My mother’s,” Miranda says and she lets out an annoyed mutter as the wood slips away from her useless, shaky hands. She’s tired. She can’t remember the last time she slept. God, she’s just so hungry.

“Here,” Andrea leans in and takes over. Miranda gratefully withdraws and lets her assistant do the work, trying to pretend there’s something normal about all of this. She heads to the kitchen and is surprised to see the old fridge still there, though it stinks of something foul. She was sure she told the service she hired to cart the whole lot to goodwill. Despite how empty the house is, she can smell the strangers who have been in here since her mother’s death. Squatters? Homeless people? They don’t smell recent at least. She finds a beat-up box of matches in a bottom drawer, along with a dead mouse crawling with maggots. It doesn’t horrify her as much as it should. It just reminds her of how hungry she is.

Back in the living room, she hands the matches to Andrea and watches her begin to light the kindling, Blow at and coax the flames. The flickering light is a comfort, bringing a human feeling to the desolate house. She sits beside the girl, though not too close. 

“You’re good at that,” Miranda says, and Andrea gives her a disbelieving look at the compliment, before shrugging.

“Girl Scouts.”

“Right.”

They both sit quietly, watching the flames, listening to the fire pop and hiss. There are other sounds, from the highway. From the next town over. Distant sounds of people. There’s an urge deep inside Miranda to go out and find them. She swallows and tries to bury the feeling.

“Miranda, what are we doing here?”

“You still don’t remember?” Miranda says. “You seemed to know more than I did, before.”

“Before what?” Andrea looks at her. 

“I don’t even know how to begin to explain it.”

“There was blood,” Andrea says. “I remember blood.”

Miranda swallows.

“You could say that.”

“Are you sick?”

“What?”

“You just…you keep wincing.”

“I’m perfectly fine.”

“You’re hungry,” Andrea observes and Miranda tries not to look horrified at the thought.

“I said I was fine.”

“My stomach hurts too,” Andrea says. “Why am I so hungry? Did we have dinner?”

Miranda gets up, abruptly.

“I’m going to bed.”

There is a mattress in the unfurnished bedroom, but it reeks of people. Of their sweat, their skin cells. She smells a man, a woman. She smells them having sex, the scent deep inside the mattress. Disgusted, she decides on the carpeted floor, which only smells of cockroaches and feet. Andrea comes to join her, dressed in pajamas that look far too cutesy for the occasion, pink pigs and a little strip of lace on the cuff. 

“Why are you…” And then Andrea pulls a face. “Yuck, what the hell is that smell?”

“Hence the floor,” she mutters. 

“I don’t like this.”

“And you think I do?”

Andrea looks pained. 

“I’m so hungry.”

“Yes,” Miranda sighs, swallowing a pang at the thought. “But there’s nothing to do about it.”

“I think I smell food, though,” Andrea says. “Can’t you?”

She can. Of course she fucking can. It’s all she can do to stop herself from tracing the scent to a house a few miles away. People inside, sleeping. Someone, far off, in a car on the highway. 

“You’re imagining it,” she says, “If you’re going to prattle on, you’re welcome to sleep in the living room, on the hardwood floor.”

“No, I’ll be good.”

Andrea settles on the floor, closer to the door than to Miranda. But she is still close enough to sense, somehow. Her smell. It is infuriating how it makes Miranda want to crawl on all fours, reach out and touch her. Do things to her. It must bother Andrea as well, for Miranda can sense her restlessness. 

Neither of them manages to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night, Andrea gives up, crawling close, pulling Miranda against her. And God, Miranda can’t stop herself from letting out a hungry cry. Andrea groans in response, and it can’t be helped. Miranda turns around and the kiss is rough. The touches are desperate. They can’t seem to stop themselves, tearing off their clothes, pressing against each other’s skin. The relief she feels in Andrea’s embrace would be ridiculous if she didn’t need it so much. She wants to crawl inside her. She nips and licks and fucks her until they are both crying out. 

They can’t even look at each other afterwards. Quickly dressing, Miranda has to turn her back and lick her fingers, each one smelling like Andrea. She suppresses a groan. It’s a long night.


	3. Chapter 3

The problem of their hunger doesn’t go away in the morning. 

Miranda rifles through the empty kitchen cupboards, vaguely hoping there will be something there that will sate her. She settles for one of the granola bars she’d taken from Andrea’s apartment. She bites into it and tries not to gag. When she offers one to Andrea, the girl pulls a face.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says. 

“At least I’m trying something,” Miranda says.

Andrea looks on in revulsion as Miranda chokes the food down. Miranda tries not to throw it all up again, just because it would give Andrea too much satisfaction.

“What happened to us, Miranda?” Andrea asks again. “Come on. You must know something.”

“An attack of some kind. In your apartment,” Miranda says. “When we were there you said something. You have to remember now. There were people, you said. People who took us there?”

“I don’t…”

“Of course,” Miranda snaps. “You’re utterly useless, aren’t you?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault!” Andrea says, “You don’t remember what happened either.”

“Well, someone did this. It’s not like we woke up one day and decided to bleed to death.”

“Plus there’s the whole vampire thing.”

“No,” Miranda warns. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? It’s pretty fucking obvious to me,” Andrea says. 

“No, it isn’t.”

“You think pretending will make it go away?” Andrea closes her eyes and lets out a breath. She sounds like she’s in pain. She is in pain. “I’m so hungry.”

“You will just have to put up with it.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Miranda rolls her eyes. “She asks why.”

“I’m not stupid,” Andrea says. “I don’t remember, but I know you did this. I can feel you under my skin. You’re part of me.”

Miranda has to breathe through her nose as a shudder of pleasure runs through her. She swallows.

“Stop talking like that.”

“You made me,” Andrea says, “Ok? So I’m not going to apologize for wanting to eat.”

“You were bleeding out on the floor, near death. Trust me, I certainly regret saving you. I’d be much happier not having you blathering on in the background. You’re making it hard to concentrate.”

“You’re starving, you idiot!” Andrea snaps. ‘That’s why you can’t concentrate.”

“And what do you suggest, then?” Miranda says, glaring.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“We’re not going to go kill someone.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Can you hear yourself?”

“Miranda. You’re going to make a pretty useless vampire if you starve yourself to death.”

“Well, apparently I’m already dead,” Miranda says, drolly. “Try a different argument.”

Andrea lets out an annoyed grunt and clenches her hands, stomping away. Miranda hears the front door slam. She doesn’t try to follow.

* * *

Andrea still hasn’t come back. It’s been hours. It has gotten dark again. Miranda can tell by the smell. There’s something soothing about the darkness that she can’t really name. The air has a chill to it, which means winter is going to bear down on them soon. 

Miranda doesn’t feel Andrea’s departure as loss, because she can sense her movements. Somehow, she knows that Andrea is close-by. Miranda estimates she’s maybe only a mile or two away. There’s a tension to whatever Andrea is doing, a slow build-up that makes Miranda’s whole body thrum with want. She pants, anticipating the moment before it happens. And when it does she lets out a groan. The thrill of it travels down her spine, her body flush with Andrea’s pleasure. But the moment is fleeting. When Miranda comes back to herself she’s alone with her hunger. She can’t think, can’t breathe. Her mouth salivates, hands clenching, her entire body burning. There’s nothing left of her but the pain and the dark. 

When Andrea returns to her, the human smell hits her immediately. It makes her eyes roll back in her head with want. She lets out a low growl she didn’t even know she could make. Andrea comes closer, a soft hand on her head.

“Shhh, it’s ok,” Andrea says. “Let me take care of you.”

There is a moan that doesn’t belong to either of them. A warm human body, bristling with fear. But there’s also the smell of food and the need is overwhelming. Andrea helps her. Guides her mouth to where it needs to be. Miranda’s fangs protrude. She bites down hard.

She drinks and drinks, the relief of it makes her whole body shudder, until the tension coiled in her stomach slackens. And God, it’s so warm, so salty and delicious. Better than anything she has ever eaten before. She feeds until she is full, until the heartbeat inside the human flickers and dies. She lets Andrea take care of the rest, aware only of her mate leaving her side. She chokes back the keen sense of loss until, moments later, Andrea returns. Their bodies press so close together that Miranda can hardly distinguish who is who anymore. Finally, she sleeps.

* * *

Miranda awakes still tasting blood. She can sense the body that had been her meal, tracking the smell to the back garden where Andrea has unceremoniously dumped it.

Andrea is in the living room, gazing out the window with a smug look on her face. There’s a milk crate she’s dragged into a seat, leaving Miranda with only the floor to sit on. She remains standing.

“You,” Miranda says. “You…_vampire_.”

Andrea doesn’t even flinch. She looks Miranda up and down and seems satisfied enough by what she sees.

“You were hungry,” she says. “I was hungry.”

“You killed someone—a total stranger!”

“Two someones, actually. And you weren’t complaining last night.” 

“I wasn’t…myself.”

“Because you were literally starving, Miranda! You could have died.”

“Oh well, that makes murder perfectly acceptable then.”

Andrea groans, annoyed. 

“At least admit you enjoyed it.”

“No.”

“Seriously?” Andrea says. “Why do you have to be like this? Is it really that hard to appreciate a few simple pleasures?”

“Excuse me for being the only one of us who retains some of their humanity.”

“I still have plenty humanity,” Andrea snaps. 

“Oh please,” Miranda says. “You don’t even know what you don’t have.”

Andrea gets up now, stalking towards her. 

“You know, you were way more fun when you were ordering me around like a tyrant to get your damn lattes,” Andrea says. “I only wanted to do the same here.”

Miranda takes a step back.

“There’s a big difference between asking for a hot coffee—”

“There really isn’t.”

“I can’t even look at you right now,” Miranda says. But Andrea smiles, her fangs visible. Her skin is luminous and Miranda’s traitorous mouth salivates.  
Andrea laughs.

“Liar.”

She vows to ignore Andrea for the rest of the day. It takes considerable effort. The house is small and she can always sense her, smell her. Miranda knows the taste of her now and it takes more energy than she can muster not to lick her lips at the thought. She sits outside by the back door, watching the long grass ripple in the breeze, staring impassively at the bodies that can easily be spotted among the overgrowth. The light of the sun doesn’t hurt, but it’s not entirely enjoyable either. It makers her edgy and she hasn’t been sleeping well at night since she shifted. Yawning, she watches a lazy hawk circle above in the sky and wonders what it would feel like to fly.

By lunchtime she is too tired to bother with histrionics. She finds her way back to the bedroom to find Andrea waiting for her. Without a word Miranda joins her on the floor. Andrea pulls Miranda close, and Miranda lets out a hum of satisfaction. And so they nod off, Miranda pressing her mouth against Andrea’s neck, their legs intertwined.


	4. Chapter 4

It is dark when they next stir. It really does feel much more natural to blink into wakefulness without the white ball of the sun burning her retinas. Miranda can smell the winter settling in the air now. She breathes in the damp of the room with a yawn. The smell isn’t unpleasant. The mold blooms along the walls, the floor, and it makes intricate patterns across the ceiling. Miranda thinks of lace, of flowers. 

It has grown so cold that they are now able to see their breaths when they exhale. For the sake of decorum, Miranda insists on keeping a fire going in the living room. But nothing she seems to do can make this feel like a home belonging to the living.

When Andrea dragged the bodies into the backyard, she’d found a deck of cards moldering in the grass. Miranda rolls her eyes at the suggestion, but they still spend the evening playing every childish game Andrea knows. 

They talk of frivolous things. Art, the weather, their own deaths. Miranda finds the last topic a little tedious. It’s hard to stay invested in an event that seems to have happened to an entirely different person.

“If we do find them, whoever they are,” Andrea says, conversationally “I want to kill them.”

Miranda gives her a look and plays her card. It’s not very satisfying, though, playing with someone whose thoughts seem to slip in and out of her head.

“Andrea,” she says. “You don’t even recall who came after us.”

“Neither do you,” Andrea says with a shrug. “It’s good to make plans, that’s all. I’m manifesting it. Like _The Secret_.” 

“Oh please,” Miranda says. “If anything, I should be the one who has the pleasure of ripping out their throats.”

Andrea snorts. Plays her card.

“Yeah sure. You won’t even hunt for food.”

Miranda glares at her. 

“You’re cheating.”

“You can’t cheat at _Uno_.”

“This isn’t an _Uno_ deck, you made up the rules. And you can cheat at anything if you try,” Miranda says, putting her hand of cards face-down in front of her. “I can kill as well as the next vampire, Andrea. I just choose not to.”

Andrea smiles.

“You said the word. You never say it.”

“Shut up,” Miranda mutters. “Besides. I was the target. You were just…in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Andrea puts her cards down in a huff.

“No,” she says. “You don’t know that. You can’t even remember why we were in my apartment in the first place.”

“Well, it’s the most likely explanation,” Miranda says. “I certainly inspired enough death threats. And I was in the middle of a divorce.”

“Stephen? That wimp?”

“Or the vegans. I recall there were a number of vegans who hated me, when I was alive.”

“Why are you so desperate to take the blame?”

“It’s not blaming, Andrea. I’m stating a fact.”

“Bullshit,” Andrea says. “It was my apartment. It could easily have been my fault. What if I’m the one that got you killed?”

Miranda lets out a disbelieving snort.

“A girl scout from Ohio? Who on earth would want to hurt you?” 

Andrea pulls a face, but she doesn’t answer the question. There’s something outside the window that has suddenly caught her attention. 

“Andrea.”

“What?”

“Tell me, then,” Miranda says. “About all those enemies you managed to amass, in your short little life.”

“Jeez. I don’t know,” Andrea says, still looking out the window. “I mean, I sure burned a lot of bridges in the last year.”

“I hardly think Emily will have put out a hit on you.”

“Really?” Andrea laughs. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”

But her attention is still being drawn away. It’s beginning to set Miranda on edge.

“Oh, for Godssake. What are you looking at out there?”

Andrea shrugs.

“It’s only gonna piss you off.”

Miranda searches for a moment and easily finds Andrea’s distant target. A family, their car is pulled over in a rest stop, about ten miles away. She swallows her hunger, settles on righteous indignation.

“Do you think of nothing but your stomach?”

“Come on, we haven’t eaten anything all day!”

Miranda pulls the shabby curtains closed and forces Andrea to look at her instead.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere for a reason,” she hisses. “They’ll find us.”

“You don’t even know who _they_ are.”

“Well, someone will see,” she snaps. “Someone will surely notice a crop of people dropping dead, drained of blood.”

“I’m careful,” Andrea pouts. “I’m fast.”

“You aren’t even competent enough to clean up after yourself.”

“Ok, look. If you’re talking about the bodies in the backyard, I was totally about to get onto that.”

“I can smell their wretchedness from here.”

“It’s a two person job,” Andrea says. “I mean, you could help.”

“Oh no, no,” Miranda chides. “You kill them, you dispose of them. Your meal, your problem.”

“Hey, you stop eating and I’ll stop asking.”

Miranda sighs and something in her face must give her away, because Andrea’s smile is triumphant. Miranda glares in response. 

“I can’t believe I am spending my Sunday evening helping you bury a body.”

“Two bodies,” Andrea says. 

“Wonderful.”

“Like you were planning anything better.”

It is actually a beautiful night. The chill in the air is just cold enough for Miranda to be able to feel it against her skin. It’s overcast, so they don’t even have to put up with the insipid light of the moon. It’s a relief, to stand outside and not feel exposed. The garden is wild enough that even if there were neighbors, she and Andrea would remain perfectly hidden. The overgrown trees and shrubs have created the kind of rustic charm that her mother’s garden certainly lacked when she’d been alive. Miranda finds a rusty shovel tucked into a corner along the side of the house, where her father used to keep it. Yet another thing the movers neglected to dispose of. She hands it to Andrea, who looks around speculatively.

“Somewhere near the back fence?”

“The smell,” Miranda reminds her. “Choose somewhere in the middle. And dig deep.”

Miranda follows Andrea to the chosen spot, dragging the first dead human by his legs. He stinks, nowhere near as pleasantly as he had when she’d been consuming his blood. At least Andrea is making quick work of the hole. It isn’t much longer before Miranda tips the man into his final resting place, and Andrea begins to cover him with earth.

“Would it kill you to find someone more attractive to eat?” Miranda asks. 

“He just looks bad because he’s been bloating in the rain.”

“He’s wearing an acidwash jean jacket,” Miranda says. “He’s probably riddled with parasites.”

“God, you’re so picky,” Andrea says. She leans against the propped-up shovel, looking around as if she has only just noticed the state of the place. “Did you really grow up here?”

“I never said that.”

“It’s your mother’s house, you said.”

Miranda hums.

“It is a period of my life I prefer not to revisit.”

“And yet you haven’t sold the house.”

“Well,” she says. “Isn’t it lucky I didn’t? No one has found us here yet.”

“You own it under your real name, don’t you?” Andrea pauses for effect. “Miriam Princhek?”

Miranda narrows her eyes, and Andrea just laughs and picks up the shovel again, starting on the second grave. 

“Relax,” she says. “You’ve read my mind too, it’s not like I’m snooping.”

“Fine,” Miranda says, dragging the next body over. His fashion sense is even worse than the first and she pulls a face.

“What?”

Miranda sighs and waits until Andrea is finished with the second hole. She heaves the body in and dusts her hands off. 

“Well,” Miranda says. “For a moment I thought you’d done some clandestine googling of me, like one of those infantile bloggers.”

“We don’t even have electricity here.”

“I meant before,” Miranda says, watching as Andrea fills the man’s grave with dirt. “Before we died.”

“Oh please,” Andrea laughs. “Not everyone is as obsessed with you as you imagine.”

“Says the girl busy reading my thoughts for her childish amusement.”

“Hey, you have a beautiful mind.”

“Charming.”

“Why thank you.”

Miranda fights the urge to smile, but that moment is fleeting. In her next breath she catches a whiff of the humans, all those miles away. They’re still out there. The family idled on the side of the road. Mother, father and two little daughters. She gives Andrea a look.

“If you’re going to get us dinner, do it quickly.”

Andrea’s face breaks into a smile but Miranda grips onto her wrist, a little too tightly. 

“Not them.”

“Ok!” Andrea pulls away, wincing and rubbing the spot. “Ow.”

“Not a family.”

“I wasn’t really going to kill them,” Andrea says, sounding small. “I was just watching. They seem so normal, you know?”


	5. Chapter 5

The nights pass, all of them unremarkable. Some nights Miranda awakes and she remembers how strange this is. She remembers she has children, and worries about how they are. She remembers there’s a job that was important once. That her face is recognizable. Notoriety, fame, used to feel essential. Now she can’t comprehend the logic of wanting to be recognized, unless it is by the men who killed her. 

She has finally started to remember things. In pieces and out of order. She remembers the feeling of faintness as she bled out on the carpet. She remembers Andrea crying out. The way they dragged her by her hair. There was a car, at the beginning. Jolting to a stop. The flash of a knife. She thinks Andrea babbled and begged, giving them the address to her own apartment. She can’t remember why.

Miranda lights a fire in their little house every night when they awaken. It doesn’t really make much of a difference, and Andrea argues it’s a waste of effort. The house is thick with damp. They don’t have anything to sweep the floor with. No furniture to sit on, to sleep on. No objects they own to tidy or rearrange or stare at. But they aren’t monsters. They will have a warm fire to sit in front of, even if it kills her. 

Andrea stares out the window night after night. Miranda watches her. With the soft light of the fire flickering nearby, she is so beautiful. In moments like these Miranda forgets it all. Forgets to find anything about their life strange. Though she knows the isolation is beginning to make Andrea restless. There’s a tension in her shoulders, and the girl has started to push her hunting area further and further out. Miranda knows the time is coming. One night they’ll wake up and they won’t be able to find anything to eat at all. 

“You’re thinking too hard,” Andrea says softly. 

“Stop listening in,” Miranda offers. 

“Can’t help it.” 

Miranda sighs. 

“I will not have conversations with you in our heads. If it’s important, say it out loud.”

“Ok,” Andrea says. “Why are we still here?”

“Here by the fire? Here by the window?”

“Miranda.”

Miranda rolls her eyes.

“Where else do you propose we go?”

“I dunno, literally anywhere else?” Andrea says. “I miss New York.”

“Too many humans.”

“I’m not seeing the downside.”

“How unsurprising,” Miranda says. “It’s safer here. Quiet.”

“It’s not safe for the humans we eat every day.”

“Well, obviously.”

“What are you so afraid of, Miranda?”

“I didn’t say I was afraid,” Miranda bristles. “There’s a line. It’s not a very clear one, but if we cross it—“

“I think we crossed it awhile ago.”

“I doubt you even remember crossing it, Andrea.”

Andrea turns to glare at her.

“Hey, why are you angry at me now?”

“I’m not angry.”

“Bullshit.”

Miranda lets out a sigh, looking away.

“It’s just so much easier for you, isn’t it?”

“Ok, here we go with this again.”

“Well it’s prudent to address it, don’t you think?” Miranda says. “You barely took a second to be ok with…all this.”

“Hey, it’s not like I had any choice.”

“There was a choice!” Miranda snaps. “We can…try at the very least. We can try to be better.”

“Better than what? What kind of sanctimonious shit is that?” Andrea is too close now, her eyes all pupil. “What is this invisible line you have in your head, Miranda? Because I’m not seeing it.”

“If I have to explain something this simple to you—”

“Oh, spare me,” Andrea says, and Miranda is distracted by the fire behind her eyes, by the delicious line of her neck. “You know what’s simple? Live or die, eat or be eaten. Jesus. You’re no purer than I am, you just won’t admit it.” 

With a growl, Miranda yanks Andrea forward. Hands tearing at her clothes, mouth attaching to her neck. Andrea groans as Miranda kisses and nips down the soft skin at Andrea’s throat, along her collarbone. Tearing off the material that obscures her breasts, Miranda tugs a nipple between her teeth. She pushes a hand downwards, not pausing to be gentle. She barely allows Andrea to take a breath as she fucks her against the dirty living room floor. Andrea scratches at Miranda’s back, drawing blood as she gasps out her orgasm.

They lie together on the floor afterward. Miranda draws Andrea close, brushing the hair out of her eyes. She kisses her slowly this time, softly. Andrea smiles as she runs her hands along Miranda’s back, watching Miranda wince. Andrea licks the blood off her fingers with a hum. And then they settle together, their breathing slowing. There’s something so natural, so perfect, about the way they fit together. They don’t have to speak so much anymore. The thoughts pass between them as easy as breathing. Miranda finds herself wanting to fill the silence.

“You still want to go back,” she says. “Don’t you?”

“New York is our home,” Andrea replies, her breaths warm against Miranda’s skin. “It’s ours as well as theirs.”

Miranda sighs. She wonders how on earth she’ll manage not to go crazy in such a place. A human everywhere she looks, convenient, like a corner bodega. 

She watches the shadows from the fire play out on the ceiling. It’s beginning to smell of spring.

* * *

It’s still light outside when the men come. A town car, much like the one Miranda had commandeered to get there in the first place. There’s an exclamation of discovery as the two men pass the parked car. A conversation Miranda barely listens to. She lets out a yawn, pulling Andrea closer. It is much too early to be awake. Night has long proven to be more soothing to their temperaments, and she feels a little grumpy at the idea of being woken up prematurely.

There’s a loud slam from outside and Andrea sits up. She has the same look on her face that she gets when she anticipates a good meal. Miranda licks her own lips, but she stills. Because one of the voices is familiar. A distant memory she has to reach for. She listens as the front door opens. The footsteps. The talk. She knows this human, one of them, even if she can’t quite recall his name.

She can smell the alcohol on him. But she has a sense that this is nothing new. She has a flash of a memory; the sensation of his breath against her skin. She shudders, shaking it off and focuses on the other human showing him around. He smells fresh, younger. 

Miranda can feel the moment Andrea tenses beside her. 

“Wait,” Miranda says, softly. “Stay.” She touches Andrea’s cheek and smiles a little at the girl’s huff of impatience. 

Miranda doesn’t rush. She moves with ease as she walks barefoot down the hallway. Finds the humans by the fireplace examining the recent ashes. It’s been so long since she’s found herself in a room with free-roaming humans. Usually they are catatonic by the time Andrea delivers them. The tension in the air shifts when they look up. She finds that she enjoys the smell of fear that fills the room, rolling the taste of it around in her mouth.

“I don’t believe we invited anyone to visit,” she says. “And yet here you are.”

The human she knows from her previous existence gapes at her. He doesn’t say anything, but his heart is pounding. His younger companion lets out a pathetic little sound. On closer inspection he is scrawny, unappetizing. Miranda shoots him an amused look.

“Go,” she says. 

He drops the documents he’s holding and bolts for the door. She hears him stumble on the front step, hears him break into a run. Like an idiot, he leaves the car.

She surveys the one who stayed behind. It’s hard to remember he was important to her once. That he has a name. That all humans do. Aside from the alcohol, he smells no different to the meals Andrea brings home. She wonders if he will bolt too, but he appears to be frozen on the spot. 

“Miranda…”

“No,” she says. “You don’t get to speak right now.”

She calls for Andrea with her mind, telling her it’s time to join them. It’s getting close to dinnertime and Andrea stares forlornly after the departed man like a woman robbed. 

“Darling,” Miranda says. “It’s going to be dark soon. Can you start the fire?”

“Yeah,” Andrea sighs. “Sure.”

The remaining human reaches out behind himself, finds the wall and slides to the ground like his legs can’t hold him any longer.

Andrea is stacking the logs in the fireplace. 

“Isn’t that Stephen?” she asks.

Miranda hums an affirmative. Of course, that was his name. Andrea shoots the human who had been her husband a suspicious look.

“Well. Why is he here?”

Miranda picks up the fallen documents, a lot of legal paperwork that seems to belong to the house they are in.

“This place. It’s for sale.”

“He can’t do that!” Andrea says. “You can’t do that.”

“The tyranny of the living,” Miranda quips. She turns to stare at the human, tilting her head a little. She can barely understand his racing thoughts over the sheer noise of his fear. But Andrea seems to piece them together, for she lets out a growl.

“Miranda,” she says. “He killed us. It was him.”

Miranda finds that she feels utterly calm at this revelation. She’s not upset, she’s not even surprised. 

“So,” she says to the human. “You wanted me dead.”

“I didn’t…” 

“No, no,” Miranda says. “That wasn’t a question. 

She shares a look with Andrea, the tension coming off the girl in waves. Andrea is so beautiful like this, when she’s primed for a kill. Miranda is distracted by the soft skin at her throat, by the way her pupils have darkened. But the human lets out a noise that draws her attention back. She reminds herself that he has a name. What was it again?

“Miranda…Miranda,” he is saying her name like a prayer. Staring at her like she can’t possibly be real. “This has all been some big misunderstanding. You’re ok. You’re alive.”

Andrea snorts out a laugh. She goes back to prod the fire one more time. Miranda tries unsuccessfully not to smile.

“You haven’t the slightest comprehension of what I am, Human.”

Something in his face changes. Maybe he is finally taking in the dilapidated state of the house. Maybe it’s the predatory way Andrea has been stalking about in the background, like she would love nothing more than tear him to pieces. 

“Miranda,” he says. “Miranda, please tell me what is happening.”

She ignores him. She listens to the fire, enjoying the way it crackles and hisses. Night is falling. Soon it will be the only source of light in the house. Andrea moves close to her again. Miranda inhales her scent and lets out a grateful breath.

“I’m hungry,” Andrea says. “Please tell me we’re almost ready to eat him.”

“You can’t be serious,” Miranda says. “His blood is four-fifths rum.”

“You have so many pointless rules,” Andrea groans. “Can I at least go kill the real estate guy?”

“Andrea, he smelt positively anemic,” Miranda says. “I swear we need to have a talk about how terrible your palate is. Iron-depleted blood? You’ll be hungry again in an hour.”

“How can you be so picky for someone who never does the killing?”

“I simply have standards.”

The human chooses this moment to make a run for it. He stumbles as Miranda snaps him back with a yank of his arm. There’s a crack of bone. He screams. 

“Oh God oh God,” he gasps. “What the hell are you?” 

“Shhhh,” she traces a finger against his lips. “You need to learn that there are consequences for your actions.”

The smell of piss suddenly fills the room, and she turns her nose up at the animal stench.

“Please,” he begs. “They were only meant to scare you!”

“How very quaint.”

“You know how New York divorces get,” he says, wincing as she twists his broken arm. “Jesus—he wasn’t supposed to. I had no idea he was—”

“Excuses, excuses,” she says. But she remembers something then. “Andrea darling, can you see if you can find his wallet? Back pocket?”

“You’re dead,” he says. “You’re legally dead.”

“There’s no need for name calling.”

Andrea passes the object she requested to her and Miranda smiles as she flips through the wallet until she finds the clear sleeves filled with photos. The human gapes.

“Look at all the lovely family you have,” Miranda says. “Nieces. Nephews. And as I recall, a father? Still alive. Barely.”

“Miranda…” he gasps. “Miranda, please.”

“Such a shame to see them suffer for your inadequacies.”

“What do you want?”

“You don’t have anything I want.”

“The girls,” he says quickly.

She takes a second to remember, but she knows the answer to this one.

“My children are in Connecticut with their father,” she tsks. “You think I don’t know the details of my own will? I certainly left no provisions for you.”

“My family... you can’t. Please. They don’t have anything to do with this.”

“Andrea was perfectly innocent!” she snaps. “You let them butcher her anyway.”

She uses her teeth, slashing open his throat in one quick motion. She lets him drop back to the ground, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He isn’t dead, of course. But he will be soon. His blood is pumping and pumping, and his life is spilling out onto the floorboards. All that wasted food. But it smells polluted, like a bad night at a bar. She turns up her nose.

“I told you,” she says, wiping her mouth clean. “It’s not fit for our consumption.”

“You did,” Andrea says. She is smiling softly as she takes in the scene in front of her. 

“I’m sick of this house,” Miranda says suddenly, reaching for Andrea and pulling her close. “It’s a dank little hovel.”

Andrea hums in agreement, beginning to kiss along Miranda’s throat. 

“Why…” Miranda lets out a sigh as Andrea bites down hard. “Why have we stayed here for so long?”

Andrea looks up then, licking her lips.

“Search me,” she says. “There’s barely anything to hunt out here. I was trying to tell you.”

“You do have some good ideas occasionally.”

“Only occasionally?”

Miranda kisses her in response, relishing the taste of her own blood. She nips at Andrea’s lips and smiles at the wince she gets in response.

It has finally gotten dark outside. Miranda stills, sensing the presence of a car a few miles off on the highway. She is hungry. She can feel Andrea’s silent agreement. Two people, a man and a woman, hopefully young and hopefully worth the effort. Miranda feels a calm sort of anticipation as she makes her way outside. She knows Andrea is following her. Knows she always will.

* * *

New York in the springtime was always Miranda’s favorite season. She enjoyed the freshness in the air before the garbage stink of summer took over. It wasn’t as irritating as Fall, which required a great deal of running about from one Fashion Week to another and hardly enough time to do it all in. Spring meant flowers you didn’t have to ship in from China, or wherever. Hyacinths and daffodils used to sprout in little clusters in her back garden, while Miranda attempted to tend to them rather than using the gardener. Spring meant beginnings back then, and it means beginnings now.

She and Andrea settle into a quiet life in the city. To begin with they make a home in Stephan’s abandoned townhouse, which is sparsely furnished and smells too much like him. There’s a bright, open window that lets too much light into the kitchen during the day, and potted plants they don’t bother to water. When his place gets tiresome, they move into the even larger townhouse of a recent meal. The dead man had a wine cellar, which they empty out onto the marble floor bottle by bottle, smashing the glass for good measure. The novelty of that soon wears off as well, so they find another place, and then another. They move on every few weeks, or sometimes within days. Eventually they may have to buy something of their own, but they have more than enough space in the city to make themselves comfortable. It’s been such a rush, allowing themselves to be on the move after so much dull peacefulness.  
When they meet others of their kind, they know to keep to separate territories. To leave space, to move on again. To share a simple nod, like you would to a neighbor you’d rather not investigate too closely. 

They haven’t managed to kill many of Stephen’s relatives yet. Just one or two when they’ve found the time. Miranda intends to keep her promise, but it’s hard to remember her obligations with so many desirable humans running about distracting her. She wonders how she managed to survive the last winter, choking down sub-par offerings and huddling like a fiend in that filthy house. She tries and fails to find a seed of logic for it. When she asks Andrea to explain, the girl shrugs and says that it had something to do with wanting to stay human. Needless to say, that inclination is confusing to the both of them.

They still prefer the night. She’s not stupid enough to show her face in New York during the day, not after being dead for so many months. But humans are simple creatures. Easy to fool if you hide in plain sight. Present yourself to them with confidence and they won’t recognize what’s right in front of them.

Springtime in New York is the baptism of their new selves in the wider world. The city is a fog of car exhaust and dirty streets, but there are somehow flowers everywhere they look. They’re for sale in carts and bodegas and are freely sprouting in various gardens and parks. They smell sweeter than Miranda remembers. They stop to admire a flower cart and she plucks a few crocuses, before killing the vendor on a whim. Of course they make it quick; dragging him somewhere dark for a drink. When they emerge onto the street afterwards, Andrea threads one of the flowers into her hair. Miranda finds it all oddly romantic. She takes hold of her mate’s hand, softly kissing down her wrist, down her arm, until Andrea laughs and pulls her into an embrace. It is a beautiful night to wander the streets together. The smell of flowers follows them as they walk into the dark.


End file.
